Having raced mx,enduro, road bikes and commuted to work, ridden on and of road for fun/touring etc over the last 25 years or so I have had more than my fair share of crashes. For some reason the worst crashes are often the slowest, and the most painful are often the least 'dramatic'. Dunno why, but often works out that way. Having said that, huge, high speed crashes can end badly to. Unfortunately it seems to come down to luck, or the lack of it. Wayne Rainey hardly crashed compared to Kevin Shwantz and look how that turned out. Hope your healing up ok and sorry for your unlucky crash!

Having raced mx,enduro, road bikes and commuted to work, ridden on and of road for fun/touring etc over the last 25 years or so I have had more than my fair share of crashes. For some reason the worst crashes are often the slowest, and the most painful are often the least 'dramatic'. Dunno why, but often works out that way. Having said that, huge, high speed crashes can end badly to. Unfortunately it seems to come down to luck, or the lack of it. Wayne Rainey hardly crashed compared to Kevin Shwantz and look how that turned out. Hope your healing up ok and sorry for your unlucky crash!

Ain't that the truth. I crashed on the highway doing 70mph or so last year and came out with no injuries, other than a couple minor bumps and bruises. Over the weekend, I tipped over nearly at a standstill and broke my fibula. WTH!?!?!

X-rays at the first hospital showed 8 broken ribs, 5 of them twice, flailed chest syndrome (because of all the broken ribs), broken collar bone, broken scapula, and a punctured lung.

Now [the shoulder] looks like this.

You are very lucky to be alive. The shoulder was collateral damage. Flailed chest has a 50% mortality rate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tlwood99

Is my internal calculator off, or would you say this is what you would expect?

I welcome any thoughts on this.

Consider what your gear protects. The helmet padding protects your head from the vertical fall - from top of the bike to the ground. The helmet shell and the leather/textiles - those protect tissues from abrasion during the horizontal slide. And the armor - that protects bones from impacts during the horizontal tumble.

Spare the helmet, none of this gear is particularly good for providing crush protection. From your description, the bike levered you into the ground. You have heard stories of folk that die of a head wound when simply dropping a bike - the forces in your circumstances were multiplied by the weight and speed of the motorcycle.

In the instant you hit the ground, your body experienced forces similar to being pinned under a truck. I would not expect to survive.

Never broke a bone at high speed, but I guess it could happen.
But somehow, I don't think going real fast all the time is a good idea...

Quote:

Originally Posted by motomuppet

Having raced mx,enduro, road bikes and commuted to work, ridden on and of road for fun/touring etc over the last 25 years or so I have had more than my fair share of crashes. For some reason the worst crashes are often the slowest, and the most painful are often the least 'dramatic'. Dunno why, but often works out that way. Having said that, huge, high speed crashes can end badly to. Unfortunately it seems to come down to luck, or the lack of it. Wayne Rainey hardly crashed compared to Kevin Shwantz and look how that turned out. Hope your healing up ok and sorry for your unlucky crash!

I don't think any gear is going to be super helpful in protecting your torso frame damage after getting pile-driven by a GS. Probably the only meaningful way of increasing safety in these kind of crashes are switching to a much lighter bike.

Thanks for all of your kind comments, well wishes and insight. I very much appreciate them.

For those interested as of now I am ten weeks post-injury, seven weeks post surgery. All the bones have healed, my lungs have healed, my shoulder is back in place, and I am "just" down to lots of physical therapy to regain full use of my right arm.

In addition to two hours of home PT every day, I go to the PT three times a week for about 1.5 hours each time. My PT is a former gymnast. After I have done my warm-up stretches I lie down, she stands over me on a stool, puts me in an arm lock and goes to work. A session with her inevitably reminds me of Big Time Wrestling which was on TV when I was a kid. I am the guy on the mat reaching out in vain to tag my partner to save me.

As I think I said before I am expected to have 100% range of motion (in another three months or so), so I take it all in stride (and lot of grimaces, many groans, and an occassional scream).

The comments and my subsequent reading about flail chest have been sobering though. At the time I was almost a bemused observer to how the medical profession treats accident victims. Upon reflection, I can see how close I came to not being here. I am anxious to be able to ride again, but how much, or how, I ride I have yet to figure out.

The medical community I have dealt with is pretty avidly anti-motorcycle, although one notable exception was my anestheologist who talked about how much he loved his Yamaha YZ450 as he rolled me into surgery.

From much of the advice I have received here I think off roading the GS will likely be a thing of the past. Not sure whether I will use another lighter bike to offroad, or give that up altogether. I sure like to ride, and giving it up altogether though would be very tough.